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How to Recharge Your Soul

Camping in the woods sounds gloriously refreshing! But I wouldn’t know where to begin, and, ugh, what if I get eaten by a bear?

That was roughly the reaction I had from some readers after my column a week ago about “nature deficit disorder” — the problems that accrue when young people spend their time indoors, deprived of the chance to catch frogs or throw rocks at wasp nests. When I was a kid, being cooped up inside was called “juvenile detention”; now it’s called “leisure.”

So this is a how-to column: Here’s how to pry yourself and your family off the keyboard and venture into the wild — without feeding a bear. In the same way that you recharge your BlackBerry from time to time, you also should recharge your soul — by spending part of August disconnected from the Web and reconnected with the universe.

In short: Go take a hike! Backpacking is the cheapest of vacations, and it links you intimately and directly to the world around you. It reminds us that we are just a part of the natural order, not lord of it, and that humble acknowledgment is the first step to improve our stewardship.

Backpacking means you take on your shoulders everything you need to hike and camp. The key is to carry very little, say 10 pounds not including food and water. I frequently see tortured backpackers stumbling along as they lug gargantuan packs that dangle frying pans; in their torment, they gaze enviously at my small pack and mistake me for a day-hiker.

1. Follow Robert Frost and take the path less traveled by, for that makes all the difference. In the evening, camp where no one else is around. You don’t need a campground: just stop anywhere that is flat. Indeed, the ground in the woods and fields is much softer than the packed dirt of campgrounds. But when you leave in the morning, make sure that you leave no trace.

2. Wear an old pair of running shoes, not a new pair of hiking boots that just give you blisters. One way to tell neophyte weekend hikers from Mexico-to-Canada through-hikers is that the beginners have huge packs and heavy boots, while the through-hikers have sneakers and tiny packs.

3. Try the “ultralight” gear that is revolutionizing backpacking. My beloved basics are the 1-pound G4 pack from Gossamer Gear, with a sleeping pad that doubles as pack frame, and a 1-pound, 13-ounce Ultralite sleeping bag from Western Mountaineering that is warm to 20 degrees.

Photo

Nicholas D. KristofCredit
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

4. Skip a tent. To keep off rain, carry an ultralight tarp that you tie between two trees and stake to the ground, like a pup tent. But if there’s no rain, sleep under the stars. God made stars so that humans could fall asleep admiring them.

5. A tiny backpacking stove can boil water for freeze-dried dinners that are unpalatable at home and delectable in the field. My kids’ favorite food is “anything cooked in the woods.”

6. Bring a fleece and a rain jacket or poncho, for being cold and wet will ruin a hike and can be dangerous. I also carry a fleece cap and gloves, as well as plastic trash bags to keep things dry — above all, the toilet paper.

7. Skip a change of clothes, except a pair of dry socks to sleep in. You’ll never stink to yourself.

8. If you have aging knees, hiking poles are a lifesaver. They are also useful in getting across raging creeks, in setting up a tarp where there are no trees, and in fending off ravenous bears.

9. Ah, yes, the bears. In black bear country, avoid camping in car campgrounds, which are regarded in ursine circles as snack joints. Cook your dinner on the trail in late afternoon, and then hike a few more miles to camp where there are no cooking smells. You may also want to use a rope to hoist your pack out of reach of bears; anyone who uses a food sack as a pillow may be kissed awake at 3 a.m. by a visitor both hungry and hirsute.

10. In grizzly or polar bear territory, carry bear spray (which is a bit like mace). Frankly, the spray is unlikely to stop a 1,000-pound bear hurtling toward you, so experienced hikers respond to a menacing bear by using the spray in one of two ways. The first option is to spray yourself in the face, so you no longer care what the bear does to you. The second option is to spray your best friend beside you, and then run.

The truth is, bears are far better behaved than humans (like the man who tried to stuff a bear into his car, so he could photograph the animal beside his wife). Black bears are small and mostly fearful, and though grizzlies can be aggressive, they are rare outside Alaska and avoid groups of several hikers. Don’t worry about them.